Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Dear Heart:

After reading this post at Little Light's, and her (yes, creep, HER) link to your little snipe, I want you to know something:

You're completely transparent. We know perfectly fucking well the "plagiarism" you're referring to has feckall to do with Robin Morgan. And furthermore:

I take back any sort of even the least little bits of half-assed vouching I ever made for you, in any circumstances, any place. You are completely toxic under that nauseatingly sweetie-sweet shell. All your cries of martyrdom and woundedness and Passion for Women, but you know what I think?

It's really all about you. You, you, you; you're Every Woman, your suffering is Every Woman's suffering; and if anyone -else's- suffering doesn't exactly match up with yours, much less god forbid take away from your dramatically limelit tears, even for a -second,- it doesn't even make your radar. I've seen it time and time again.

and isn't it mighty white of you, all the hard hard work you've done on behalf of WomanKind, and your this, and your that.

Enough, please. Yeah, you've had a really hard life. Lots of real suffering. No doubt. So have other people. It still doesn't excuse your being a pretentious, solipsistic, noxious, gasbag. Or, above all, for your -vile- transbigotry, yes, that's right, i said BIGOTRY. Little Light is worth ten of you.

You want to try to pull a "realness creds" thing, Miz "Political Lesbian, No, Of Course I Am Not a Biological Essentialist At All"? Try to tell -me- who's really my ally? Try to tell -me- about APPROPRIATION? You and your little pet Pony, she of such charming gems as "You sound like a fag" and your oh-so-gently chastised rogue lamb Lucky, she of "ANALogy" and "silly gay people, marriage needs to be done away with!" among so many, many more? Fucking bring it.

And, you know what else? In my opinion? You're still a bloody fundamentalist. You never -stopped- being a bloody fundamentalist. You just got a makeover.

Now fuck off.

--signed, a Fat White Lesbian Whose Voice is Important, Very Important. but it's not the only one. Thank God.

p.s. I've read Robin Morgan. Little Light is no Robin Morgan. Robin Morgan writes like an emu. And so do you. And, as LL makes abundantly clear, if it wasn't already, Morgan does not have a patent on "monster" any more than you have a patent on "suffering." Or "feminism." Or, for that matter? Womanhood.

I linked to the post because I thought it was wonderful. The theme of “woman as monster” is nothing new, there have been countless takes on it, good and bad, for thousands of years…from the depictions and tales of the Medusa to the prayers and dances used in honor of Kali as both a woman and a destroyer. Universities study the phenomena (http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/monster.html). From Frankenstein to modern pop horror/sci fi lit, the exploration, depicition and musings about the monsterous feminine is nothing new. Many women, even in blogs, have used such imagery. I doubt LittleLight was writing anything other than what she felt using imagery that appealed to her, as so many do. I won’t be removing my link, because i think her piece is amazing, and very much her."

You know, Belle, I'm scared. If I ever get this treatment from you I'll have no choice but to know it's truly the ass-beating I deserve. When you go telling all the truth like this it should remind the rest of us to walk the line. I very much doubt anyone (with any validity) is going to rush to her defense wrt this post. How can you?

And if you need to call this comment the obeisances of a sycophant, fine. Whatever. Just don't hurt me.

more to the point: people who engage honestly and especially aren't fucking bigoted assholes, especially ESPECIALLY bigoted assholes who try to make out like they are, -always- the Most Wounded Ones Of All, even as the other person stands in front of them with an open vein and all they have to offer is a sprinkle of salt...tears, for themselves, of course.

Oh THANK GOD. I thought the Morgan poem was, um, not the best poem I've ever read (though in fairness to her, I did read it quickly, and I do like her essay writing), but I didn't realize anyone else thought so, too.

Yeah. "I'm a monster and I'm proud!": Nice, but no imagery in it. Maybe the rest of the poem is better, but that's really tepid for a discussion of monstrosity. Where are the fangs and teeth and blood in that?

Again, maybe I'm wrong -- can't seem to find the full test of the poem -- but the snippet Heart quotes is fucking tepid.

Well, I love it when bigots expose themselves. And make no mistake, this latest thing is yet another self exposure.

This sort of tactic is one that people of color are very familiar with when dealing with bigots... the almost immediate denigration of any sort of accomplishment, especially one that shows the bigot in a bad light, and really especially one that basically tells them to go soak their heads, and that gathers praise from many. It *must* be shown that, no, "this person who I think is less than the least cannot be responsible for this, obviously they got it from someone else - preferably someone just like me - so that it's not really *their* accomplishment, but something they've stolen from my tribe instead". BFP picked that up immediately.

I am so glad she (little light) wrote it though... not only is it a wonderful piece of work, but it so needed to be said. It's moved the conversation (or should) out of their realm of "could you, do you, should you exist", onto firmer ground of "I exist in all my glory, deal with it from *this* point", so to speak.

This sort of tactic is one that people of color are very familiar with when dealing with bigots... the almost immediate denigration of any sort of accomplishment, especially one that shows the bigot in a bad light, and really especially one that basically tells them to go soak their heads, and that gathers praise from many.

Exactly, Nanette. This little snipe is a way to discount someone's perspectives and voice through trivial identifications: it's the equivalent of telling someone on the internet that using italics makes them look angry or saying spleling und grammmarrrrr cuonts and sense u cAN't tyep, ur invisibell and everyone should be ignoring you. Underhanded faux-intellectual pissing contests.

I have been there, and I know what that feels like. so, do as i say and not as i do (at the moment): turn off the machine and go lie down. seriously. it's the adrenaline keeping you up at this point. lie down with a boring book, turn the lights on to dim, tell yourself you're NOT going to go to sleep, you're going to read this book. if your eyes start getting heavy, don't turn off the light, don't get up to put the book away; just put it upside down for a minute while you rest your eyes. works for me, anyway...

The most obvious snipes against trans people almost always have to include some sort of gender or pronoun-related dig: witness the "she or he" in Heart's post. Plain as day. Not many trans people who've been in nasty arguemnts that haven't seen that little fang come out, it's the anti-trans equivalent of telling someone that it must be her "time of the month" if she's upset. And what do you know, I've gotten both in one week before! Lucky me.

The most obvious snipes against trans people almost always have to include some sort of gender or pronoun-related dig: witness the "she or he" in Heart's post. Plain as day.

I spotted that, Heart, and I also noted her characterizations of Morgan's work:

Birthed in women’s struggles for freedom and full humanity, the poem captured the imaginations of millions of feminist women, inspiring them to challenge and resist the many brutalities, small and large, which women suffer everyday because they are women.

The language is suspect when she talks about a poem for women because they are women being birthed in women's struggles. And then linking to a transwoman after all these debates of who (and sometimes what) they are. It's reminiscent of silencing in discussions with people of color.

Couple that with her rundown of women's genitalia informing Morgan's poem in the comments section and -- yeah, I just don't trust it. It's a very low dig.

Holly, that is one point that had me seeing red in that post, the "he or she". Might as well just come out and say "it", and makes Little Light's point too, because the unidentifiable, the other, IT, is a monster.

I also felt that the whole slimy point of the post was to let Little Light know that she isn't "one of us" and shouldn't be stealing from feminists or associating herself with us real authentic gen-u-wine women. "a different type of political struggle", meaning that the struggles of transWOMEN aren't that of women.

Little light, you are my sister! Heart is the real fucking monster and I want nothing to do with IT!

You know, the thing is, what LL wrote was really brilliant. Both the writing & the, whacha call it, humanity of it. Whereas Robin Morgan is much, much less than a minor poet (&, evidently, morally inferior).

"That's right, i said BIGOTRY. Little Light is worth ten of you."and"And, you know what else? In my opinion? You're still a bloody fundamentalist. You never -stopped- being a bloody fundamentalist. You just got a makeover."

Belle? Will you please include the above on your Greatest Hits CD? Thank you!

and Sylvia, that bit about grammurrr, etc. cracked me up, too. i think heart's HYOOOOGE emphasis on socialization is what reveals her deep roots in cultural feminism. Halley has a pretty great discussion of the moralizing framework associated with this branch of thought. It's what she finds most dangerous about it -- and I think she's right on the money. but more on that when i have time for a post.

oh yah, i've always hated that "when i am an old woman i shall be i mean wear purple" crap, too. if we're -really- lucky the Revolution might've happened by then! more pie in the sky; you're right. and yeah, fuck the red hat society; wear 'em now.

when i am an old woman i shall fuck my brains out. come to think of it...

QD: that line -is- lifted, more or less; it's from a Reza Abdoh play. (the only bit that really stuck with me). "Hip Hop Waltz of Eurydice."

oddly enough i still don't think he'd be running around demanding royalties for it, you know.

and what Heart -really- revealed, besides her being total a fucking 'stain, is the Compleat Essentialism of the whole thing. i see no reason to take her carefully elaborated hooha about "socialization" crap ever again; this was an appeal to "women R Speshul because they are born with hoohoos, and don't you forget it, you upstart," plain and simple.

of -course- it's essentialist. why else would she give a crap? she has absolutely no interest in getting rid of "gender;" much less untying it from biology; if she did, there'd be no need for her and her brand of feminism, would there, and we certainly can't have THAT.

Revolution my ass. Comfortably long way off, there, Heart. and it's a nice little side benefit that you get to pump your ego as much as you do in the interminable meantime.

you know. it sort of reminds me of the CP still rabbiting on about the "withering away of the state." sort of a less attractive prospect, that, when the state, it is you, innit? but we can never admit that, of course: christ, no. that would start to unravel the whole thing, and we can't have THAT. bring out the enforcers!

Finally, there are important political reasons for my blogging about this. This poem that Robin Morgan wrote, “Monster,” was about the reaction of her small son to Morgan’s own genitals, the same reaction men and boys throughout the ages have had to women’s genitals (when they weren’t using women’s genitals for their own reasons). Women have been made, always, by men, to be monsters.

Couple that with the "he or she" crap and it couldn't be more plain. Little Light is not a woman. Little Light can -never be a woman.- Little Light is trying to -plagiarize- womens' genitals. THAT is the message here; and Heart can afford to mumblemouth and sweetdoubletalk about it because she's got her little footsoldiers like Lucky (i cannot BELIEVE she had the nerve to post ON LL'S SITE after all that), you know, "when men can shit babies out their ass..."

it's frigging beyond pathetic.

she's such a little control freak. big fish, tiny pond, but uh oh, better not anyone threaten that pond! or should i say: Queen Bee, little hive.

bzzz. bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

(yes, i know, i don't think SC and Heart conferred over that one. doesn't matter. that there would be where the ideological shit comes in. as in, their ideology is, "purity over people." well, or rather, that would be where "ideology" turns int "ideologue." and i ain't havin' it).

Not that Ma is the type to ask for anything frivolous, but hey, Kali? Could you engage in some serious divine ass-kicking here? Please?

I've not seen anyone who deserved it so richly in a long, long time. Ugh.

Shit babies? Are we back to Freud now? "and thus the meaning of the excrement-baby..."

Urgh.

Not to mention how utterly gross it is to talk about babies as if they are shit. So you're saying that what your female organs do is on par with pooping, but you're still cool because you got them at birth?

Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, you losers, and if you ever start calling yourselves "monstrous" I hope Ma Kali, Lilith and her children, Tiamat, the Furies, various gorgons, and every other fearsome female monster/goddess rises up in full fury to let you know just what you're messing with and just how fucking stupid it is to take that lightly.

oh, trin, that was lucky's BS at IBTP a few weeks back, the one that launched the first round of this mess (yeah, i see this as part of the same flameout, much as Heart distances herself from Twisty -or- Lucky...sometimes. actually they both tend to talk about people like Lucky in the tones people use for faithful dogs. except for now TF finally dumped her ass when the pressure got too intense). there were a number of gems in there. the whole, transfolk are "nutjobs," belong in a mental ward, in a straightjacket, f'r instance.

oh yah, and Freud (that patriarch, away with anything to do with him and -all- his works! away, i say!) would've had a field day with this one; lucky is also the one who compared fellatio to shit-eating in the great Blowjob Wars of 2006.

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. and sometimes an asshole is just one giant asshole.

well, yeah. that's why they hate the pomos. critics like j. butler exposed the deep cultural essentialism as nothing more than biological essentialism, IN SPITE of all the claims about social constructionism. this is why, long ago, in my first post to heart when she was having a war with piny on the issue, i brought butler up and piny was hip to it b/c butler's critique provides a way of thinking through the conundrums of anti-essentialism. it also produces it's own conundrums, but...

---

Robin Mogan

"Feminism is, at this moment and on this planet, the DNA/RNA call for survival and for the next step in evolution -- and even beyond that feminism is, in its metaphysical and metafeminist dynamic, the helix of hope that we humans have for communication with whatever lies before us in the vast, witty mystery of the universe*." (from Morgan's _The Anatomy of Freedom_ where she tries to ground feminism in the metaphors of the "new physics.")

btw, once again finding cool new people through alla this mess; trackback from LL's led me to a medieval scholar's site, where some interesting talkages are going on.

what it reminded me of--well, various posts, was the love i've always had for the "grotesque" myself, and how rich a mine the Middle Ages is/are (augh) for this. several papers and an unfinished adaptation of "La Celestina," among other things. the thesis throughout, and the explicit one i'd had in one of the papers, was that the "grotesque" is -not- in fact just a pathological thing, never was; it's Carnival, it's Shakespeare, it's a rich riotousness, not just a pathologizing.

but what i said there was:

--oh, and that picture of Inferno below reminded me: hello, Bosch, and Breughel.

what I really loved about LL's post was that it was a -celebration- of "monstrosity" as much as anything else. the Morgan bit is all about "yeah well then fuck you, i -am- as Bad as you say I am." that's not at all what LL's getting at, seems to me; or at least, she doesn't -stop- there. That's the part Morgan and Heart and her ilk don't or won't understand. The pleasure of ambiguity. Of -exuberance,- not just defiance. It's perhaps a spiritual distinction as much as a political or aesthetic one.

trin: the de Sade quote reminds me of Angela Carter, another rowdy feminist who'd have absolutely no truck with this elitist, narrowing, defensive-posturing bullshit. and would probably have been all over the "feminism of the monstrous," that's what her work IS, pretty much.

Also, monstrous transfeminine != monstrous feminine via a transphobic feminist. Little light is using the same basic idea--"Are queers revolting? You're damn right we are!"--to make a similar point about a similar but distinct problem.

I don't agree with Morgan's politics, but I think she's a very good essayist. I can't give any kind of learned opinion on her poetry, or anyone's, but it doesn't strike me as bad. (Personally, I'm all about the vignettes and not so much the polemic; emmv, though, I know.) Monster is just a different work, artistically speaking, from Little Light's piece--it's like seeing Georgia O'Keefe as a tracing of Emily Carr. And in any case, Heart clearly sees Morgan as the brilliant writer whose glory Little Light is stealing. If she'd accused Little Light of plagiarizing Jeanette Winterson, it'd be beside the point that The Powerbook was disappointing.

shrug. technically she can create let's say effective prose, essay-wise. she just really rubs me the wrong way, and it's not just the content, either, although it's certainly related. there is a...tone that makes my palm itch.

"what I really loved about LL's post was that it was a -celebration- of "monstrosity" as much as anything else. the Morgan bit is all about "yeah well then fuck you, i -am- as Bad as you say I am." that's not at all what LL's getting at, seems to me; or at least, she doesn't -stop- there."

Yes. Yes.

It's the difference between, say, someone calling me evil for being an SM sadist and me shrugging and going "Okay, so I'm a monster then. See you on the flip side" and someone talking about that and me countering with discussions of katabasis (of course the real thing, not the Robert Bly-ism, ew!) and what it means and how it works and why a frightening life is the only life worth living -- and the only one really lived, for that matter.

well, andbut: i mean, you could certainly call LL's post "earnest," if by "earnest" one means, as is meant by way too many so-hip-i-can't-see-over-my-pelvis 90's holdovers, anything that isn't so heavily layered in irony and cynicism that you can't tell if the person means -any- of it sincerely or not, much less gives a damn.

i just imagine most of her stuff, especially that "Radishes, Light Bulbs, Fertilizer" or whatever it was piece, delivered in nasal tones, from pursy lips. it's hard not to.

"Feminism is, at this moment and on this planet, the DNA/RNA call for survival and for the next step in evolution -- and even beyond that feminism is, in its metaphysical and metafeminist dynamic, the helix of hope that we humans have for communication with whatever lies before us in the vast, witty mystery of the universe*." (from Morgan's _The Anatomy of Freedom_ where she tries to ground feminism in the metaphors of the "new physics.")

Mary Sunshine Says: January 18th, 2007 at 7:08 amBut … but … they do such a *better* job of being women than we do.

Can’t we just get over it, and pay obeisance to them for that?

We never really knew how do do feminism until *they* came along and brought us into the light, while keeping the spotlight on themselves.

Being *born* female is such a nasty, creepy slimey thing that we need to have the way shown to us by those who were not so cursed.

Copycats are better cats, seems to be the point in all of this.

Mary S.

womensspace Says: January 18th, 2007 at 7:13 amProfacero, exactly. Let’s talk about the apparent erasure. Let’s talk about Robin Morgan and her poem, “Monster,” which is beautiful and brilliant and worth talking about. Let’s talk about the difference between the struggles/issues of women and the struggles/issues of transwomen. Let’s talk about who has made whom to be monstrous and why and when and where.

Mary Sunshine, I love you.

xxxooo

Heart

also note that this is right after profacero was all, well uh except for LL never had actually read Morgan before, and Heart just blipped right over it without even missing a beat. It's STILL appropriation she sez. Okay!

all i have to add at this point is:

will someone at least please tell the silly git that she doesn't need to sign her frigging posts? we KNOW who she is; it was sort of obvious from y'know the login right there at the top of the post, and also the big emu footprints all over the fucking thing.

Oh, my, darling, the drama. Every time I peep in here I spend an hour following links and unearthing stories.

The true tragedy in this one, to my mind, is that so many persons cannot seem to tell the difference between great writing and mediocre crap. LL's brilliant post was an example of the former; the allegedly 'plagiarized' poem was an excrutiating example of the latter.

It is not possible to successfully plagiarize bad writing. End of discussion.

And, belledame, if I ever incur your wrath, I suppose I shall simply have to change my name and manufacture another identity. ;-)

It is not possible to successfully plagiarize bad writing. End of discussion.

Hello.

Or, well, when you do, it's basically "satire."

speaking of drama, you should totally go over to renegade's; she's engaging the wackiest menfolk you ever did see. i think i made a kind of sort of breakthrough with one? perhaps? you would've been proud? or amused...

I just took a look at Heart's thread...help, I'm trapped in a female version of Robert Bly-world and I can't get out!For some reason one comment really stuck in my mind. It was the one about men always hating and expressing disgust towards women's genitals. Which struck me as odd, because any man who's ever seen mine had seemed rather delighted. My memory of the first boy who ever got a good look at that part of my body is that his eyes went wide like saucers and he said "wow, cool!" (OK, so he was seven, but still)Sometimes I wonder what planet some of these people live on, because it doesn't seem to be the same one I've been inhabiting for the last 33 years.And in reference to all the "belle's so scary, remind me not to piss her off!" comments, this little display of righteous anger kind of makes me want to give her a kiss. Presumably this is because I'm tragically male identified and all that crap.

prettylady, plainsfeminist etc - I'm so glad that someone else pointed out that the "orginal" poem really isn't that impressive. Morgan had some interesting things to say but her actual writing style leaves a lot to be desired. It's a little dry, you know?Yo, renegade, she actually left your comment up. Now that's surprising.Trin "Shit babies? Are we back to Freud now? "and thus the meaning of the excrement-baby..."" You made me spit tea on my monitor, and for this you must die...The fellatio=shiteating comparison was rather...illuminating, wasn't it? Sometimes I feel like some of these people are simply stuck in about the 3rd grade. "Ew, you have a pee-pee, that's so gross!".I've said it before and I'll keep saying it - "I think XYZ is icky" is not an appropriate foundation for a political movement. There are plenty of actual, logical reasons why feminism is a good and necessary thing. Wouldn't it be cool if we could focus on those for a while instead of "trannies/penises/femmey girls are so icky!".

And, you know... I didn't link LL's post, intially. I saved it, yes, but there's no one that reads me that doesn't read someone else that linked it. But if they're going to go on the "attack" to all those that linked her, well, fuck it. I'll fight 'em. Tooth and nail (especially appropriate tools right now, no?).

But... just... goddamn. I can't even think about this coherently; I am filled with RAGE at it.

OK, I have a confession. I read too fast, read the excerpt of the Morgan poem, thought it was the whole thing. Now that I've read the whole thing, I actually thought it was pretty good.

However, two things:

I still think that LL's piece is really, really excellent, and also, completely different from Morgan's. How 'bout that? I would never have thought of Morgan's piece even had I read it before. I would, of course, have thought about Shelley, and about Donna Haraway, and about the feminist writer I can't remember who wrote about motherhood and machines around the same time that Morgan was writing.

And second, if my son had made that association that her son did, I would have taken it in an entirely different context. Because what her son did? That was the antithesis of the vagina dentata, of the monstrous. That was the friendly vulva that sings "C is for Cookie." And I would have said, this boy will be different. This boy will be a man who loves women, and who does not fear or need to overpower them.

That was the antithesis of the vagina dentata, of the monstrous. That was the friendly vulva that sings "C is for Cookie." And I would have said, this boy will be different. This boy will be a man who loves women, and who does not fear or need to overpower them.

Sad, huh. The tragic irony is that Robin (if one takes her rant seriously, and I do) had him pegged as "killer" from the get-go. As one of the truly monstrous, iow. Not just "potential", but already participating. Poor little guy. That's got to leave a mark. Can you imagine growing up in that house of mirrors? I can only hope she recognized her hallucinations and projections for what they were, was able to relax, and get some decent sleep with better, more hopeful dreams.

Sad, huh. The tragic irony is that Robin (if one takes her rant seriously, and I do) had him pegged as "killer" from the get-go. As one of the truly monstrous, iow. Not just "potential", but already participating. Poor little guy. That's got to leave a mark. Can you imagine growing up in that house of mirrors? I can only hope she recognized her hallucinations and projections for what they were, was able to relax, and get some decent sleep with better, more hopeful dreams.

Indeed, anonymous. In the late 70's or early 80's (memory's going...) I shared a house for a while with 7 lesbians, one of whom had a son about 6 years old. One night the little boy had got up in the wee hours (ha!) to pee, and got a fright when one of the women came into the bathroom behind him, and he quite naturally turned around, still holding his little cock in his hands. I swear to you that the woman reported this to the household the following morning as a case of the boy threatening her with his penis.

I've often thought about that little boy, who'd be in his early 30's now, and the conversations he heard in that house. Some of the women, including his mothers partner, would ridicule him because he felt an attachment to the one man who spent some time in the house. All myself or my partner could say was 'don't listen to them', but the couple who were his parents were strong-minded women not to be trifled with. They were 'believers'. If it happened here....

I read the whole thing, the Morgan, and...well, putting aside the snark a bit, i still didn't care for it. and yes, it is saying something very very different from LL. which Heart now admits, btw. it is quite something how she can do that, and sort of allow as to how okay LL never actually read Morgan, -and- never cop to that what she really meant was that LL is co-opting her -feminism- and zomg Womens' Oppression (and genitals), and still continue on as though she were speaking quite quite reasonably, without hardly skipping a beat, even.

i mean, so yah: the point of the Morgan piece, esp. as prefaced by Heart's intro, which i loved, the gay-rights activist husband who was still being an Oppressive, woman-hating Man (because, reading between the lines, there'd be like no connection between the dude's struggle to accept his homosexuality and still be married to & sleep with a woman, and any feelings he might have about her genitalia in that context), which only goes to show you: They Don't Care About Us.

even my son, dammit. well alrighty then. I AM a monster. at least it's better than feeling completely invisible and miserable and squashed flat, which I do. p.s. fuck you, Menz.

that is, needless to say, not at all LL's point. it is different not just because it doesn't embrace the Men Are Men and Women Are Women thing (hello), but also because it's affirmative, exurberant, not just defiant and reactive. Morgan's is only the latter.

and here's Heart, 35 years later, insisting that this is The (Universal Womens') Truth, Still As True Now As It Ever Was, You See How I/We Are Being Oppressed And Silenced, Still. I Am As One With Robin Morgan, Woman, Help Help I/We'm Being Oppressed.

yeah. it all comes from the very dangerous positioning of "we have NO power, certainly not over ANY MALE and not over each other, either (yet somehow we're still like gonna take over the World, Pinky)." that really is an abdication of responsibility. It's one thing, and a very important one, to affirm that no, I am not responsible for the abuse that happened to me, personal and/or structural. It still isn't a get-out-of-being-called-on-your-shit-free card, like EVER, for ANYTHING (except of course how you are Harming Women by your patriarchal dress/consensual sexacts)

For the record, I was just really offended to see little light’s page where (s)he (?) has thrown up all kinds of ancient female Goddess imagery and obviously done a makeover of Robin Morgan’s poem to try to present him/her/its self as a born-female.

These female power images have *everything* to do with female biological creative power: gestation, birth, and lactation.

That power is an essential and unremoveable part of those images.

The fearsomeness of female being is very much connected to these particular powers, amongst others.

Trannies really, really do need to realize that there are some lines they should not be crossing.

OK, fine, call yourself “she”, get your body hacked up (or not), get “recognized” as something or other. But you know what? Your imagined “rights” don’t exceed mine: my right to say “hell, no!” when you’re presenting yourself as what I *am* and you *are not*.

You *have not* almost died in childbirth. (I have).

You *have not* almost lost your newborn daughter in that process. (I have).

You *have not* lactated and nourished your own child from your own body. (I have).

These experiences of female power and danger have not been, and never will, be yours.

So back off with the imagery that suggests that they are.

Mary S.

And there you have it, folks.

That's as bad or worse as anything I saw at TF's. And Heart let it through mod AND she xxxxooo's Mary Sunshine.

I know, I know, this is not the right place to post this. But if I go post it at Heart's, I don't think it's going to be received as part of a thoughtful discussion - here, it will be. It's pretty clear from the comments there that my own will certainly not be welcome.

I'm troubled by chasingmoksha's (sp?) comments about race over there. First, she says that whenever she tells people she's culturally black, they get all upset, and she's kept out of woc spaces b/c, they tell her, no matter what she thinks, she is white.

Now, here's the thing. There are plenty of white women who identify with woc and who are including in certain woc spaces and who are allies and who are sisters. There are also plenty of woc who look white. In fact, with regard to multiracial and biracial identity, "the" African-American community ('cause obviously it's not one community, but YKWIM), has favored multiracial people of African descent calling themselves Black or African American and identifying with the larger community, specifically because however they might personally identify, racially, if they have African descent, the rest of the world will see them as Black.

Chasingmoksha's analogy collapses because she assumes that everyone will see transwomen as men and think they are really men and treat them as men. And guess what? Not so. (just lost my ability to capitalize: stupid keyboard: bear with me) i can think of several transwomen who would only ever be seen as women and treated accordingly

Sorry for all of my typos - I finally got my computer to cooperate, I think -

Anyway, continuing on...

The difference is that multiracial people in a Black context are encouraged to identify as Black. (This is not the same as total acceptance - I realize that there are all kinds of "who's Black enough," etc. accusations and conversations.) But when it comes to gender, there is a real resistance by both men and women to including transwomen as women and transmen as men.

Now. There are men who don't perceive themselves as women who nonetheless feel like they should be honorary women and included in women's space. That, to me, is 100 times different. But if I had to make a racial analogy, I'd say that MTF transwomen would be more analogous to multiracial people than to white people in chasingmosha's analogy.

(I know this is problematic, but I'm trying to work through what's bugging my about her post.)

A white person (not a person of color with white skin) who wants to be accepted as culturally black raises all kinds of questions, because I really don't believe that one inherently feels that one is of another race in the way that transgendered people feel they are of a different gender than their bodies. What I think is that a white person who wants to be accepted as culturally black is simply someone who identifies with Black culture. And since I've known many white people who are part of communities of color, it's unclear to me what the problem is. Perhaps the person in question is trying to attend a WOC meeting or something? I don't know. (I'm not saying I think it's ok for white people to barge into WOC spaces - just that, I don't see why a white person would want or need force herself in if she truly were culturally Black. If that were so, wouldn't she already be part of the community? Or is this role-playing?)

Further, I have some problems with a white, cisgendered (am I using this term correctly?) person making these analogies in order to 1) support her own access into a community that does not want to include her and 2) support her own feeling that someone else should be excluded from a community that she is part of. That just seems contradictory.

Sorry for the long-winded, not very articulate post. I would love to know what others think about this.

slippage. it's not that i don't want to discuss the subject, necessarily, it's just...mm. yeah. CM. (hums, looks at ceiling)

we were also talking about this at feministe a while back, using someone's boneheaded, "well! I guess I'll just say I'm black, and I'll be black!" (used sarcastically, meant to say it could never happen, was insulting and ridiculous appropriation, just like transgender is, so: TS=drag=blackface, was what they were saying, more or less) to riff off of.

i don't think being "culturally black" is the same thing as what that was supposed to be all about, though.

well, a few things. one, i think gender-based, much less *sex* based essentialism is way more deeply ingrained and widespread than racial essentialism, although the latter is still around as well.

and yeah, we could talk about the various permutations of how and why that works all day...

Funny you arrived at that idea, plain(s)feminist, because I wrote about something very very similar a while back in a comment at Feministe, where the "being trans is like pretending to be a different race" horse was being beaten to death again. I actually think there are a lot of parallels between multiracial experiences and trans ones, maybe in part because I have both.

well, you know LL is multiracial herself, and she did have a discussion earlier on, continuing one of the discussions at bfp's (the one that had degenerated, not the later, more successful one ((CM was prominent in the one that degenerated and i am going to leave it at that))). that's probably a dead thread by now, but i'm sure she'd be willing to pick it up again at some point. maybe not in that particular thread, though.

Something else - people often talk about race to make the point that, just as one can't change race, one can't change gender. What flummoxes me is the absolute lack of understanding of history involved in such a statement. The entire history of race as a concept in the U.S. is one of people doing exactly that. Irish, Italians, Hungarians - none considered white by white Americans at the time they got here. The Irish managed to reinvent themselves as white via political activity. Jewish people were not considered white (and still aren't by white supremacists), but chose to be white and get white privilege (those who "look white"). Pretty much every ethnic group has tried to be white, either through actual petitions for citizenship as white (from Asian and Latin American countries) or through other means. So, yes, it is not only possible to change one's race, but it has been done many, many times. The difference is that individuals don't get to choose their own race - it's a process of social construction over time.

And ya wanna know what else? Any white person who thinks it's impossible for her to suddenly become Black should start telling people that one of her parents is Black. And then she should ask those people she tells this to what race they think she is.

cicely - Poor kid. He's probably spent a bundle on therapy.And see, this is what bothers me. Every time I say "well, I hate to admit it, but it really does seem like some feminsts actually don't like men very much" I get told that I'm imagining it, or supporting MRAs, or creating strawmen, but the fact is these people do exist. They're not to majority, not even close, but damn are they ever noisy and I don't understand why pointing out that that's not really what it's all supposed to be about is a VERY BAD THING. Know what I mean?I encountered the phenomenon for the first time in university, when we were all supposed to talk about our personal experiences during a seminar and one of my fellow students looked at me with narrowed eyes and spat out "you're sleeping with a man?" as if she was accusing me of killing kittens. These people do exist. We're not imagining things.Also, I don't but that "well women are opressed so much more!" is acceptable as a rebuttal to the idea that, for example, Morgan really shouldn't have done that to her kid. The fact that he was a male child is irrelevant, he was still a child.

And while we're on the subject of children - Mary Sunshine's (that name=blech)comment implying that suffering and nearly dying in childbirth is what makes her a woman...Um, I don't have any kids. I have no intention of having any. The creative power of my ovaries will never be harnessed, and frankly I'll be quite glad when it's gone and I don't have to worry about contraception and more. What does what make me, then? Not a woman?

i forget the context of the whole conversation, (this was ages ago, high school actually, but this stuck with me), but upshot was, the other girl (who was I think white by pretty much everyone's definition including her own), says,

"Oh! I didn't know you were black!"

and I mean: this is high school, so i doubt that there's a lot of conscious understanding of the subtler nuances of the political meaning of Black, etc. etc.

i think what happened was, for whatever reason, this girl-woman didn't "fit" her idea of "black," whatever that was; even though i strongly suspect that if you were to ask her, the other girl i mean, she'd probably have said without thinking that sure, black was a "color," i.e. skin tone. iow she wasn't saying "oh, I didn't know you were African-American; I thought you were Tamil" (although perhaps that might have been what she meant, who the hell knows). But...so, like, suddenly she changed, right?

point i'm stumbling around is that we tend to assume these things are about -physicality,- both the superficial presentation to the world and the, if not immutable, at least damn difficult to change without a trace of what you were before or without expensive and difficult procedures, things like skin tone and genitalia and so on. maybe those two are the biggies, really.

and yet: as you say. "How the Irish Became White." and you know, i -don't- think anyone thought they weren't "white" because they were darker complected, the Irish, at least. So: it -is- something else. Too.

slip, was responding to pf. oh fuck yea, Mary Sunshine, I said the same damn thing, Cassandra (stop plagiarizing me!! STOP it i say!! damn you! your hivemind's over THERE! ours is over HERE! bzz bzz bzz!) and, really, how pathetic. How is this different from, say, as recently amused to great hilarity over at Renegade's an MRA boasting, in all seriousness, that men were better than women because, among other things, they can pee standing up.

(as Veronica or someone noted, "I really hope he puts that on his resumé")

very time I say "well, I hate to admit it, but it really does seem like some feminsts actually don't like men very much" I get told that I'm imagining it, or supporting MRAs, or creating strawmen, but the fact is these people do exist. They're not to majority, not even close, but damn are they ever noisy and I don't understand why pointing out that that's not really what it's all supposed to be about is a VERY BAD THING. Know what I mean?

yup.

and if you do acknowledge their existence and try in -any- way to make it clear that you're not, you know, them? then comes the whole, pandering to the patriarchy, the men, fun feminist, Feminist Lite, yadda, yadda...

and while I can understand some of the grousing when it comes out of experiences of, you know -actual- encounters with a feminist going, "Oh, we're not all those hairy-legged dykes; some of us are -real women-"

...as has been known to happen, yus

...that, okay.

but, that's not always how it happens, either.

...why am i starting to feel like this is becoming a terribly elaborate form of "but she started it!"?

anyway, point being: it's not so much even that i want to distance myself from any separatists, radicals, yadda; look, you do what you gotta do. We all come to our positions and feelings for a reason. As long as there is the understanding that we really can co-exist, you and I; that neither of us is cancelling out the other.

it's just that y'know when people really do start acting like the Red Guard, i am so not impressed.

anyway, i would venture that the people who are not only radicals and/or separatists but well kind of unpleasant fanatics who seem to be using their politics primarily as a way to vent bile against men (and anyone else who is The Enemy) and control other women are, as you say, very much a minority, but a LOUD minority. as are all fundamentalist zealots and/or generally Awful People, I suppose.

mostly I wish that those women and most of the MRA's (sadly, based on my experiences thus far I am with RMildred and others in observing that in that instance the paranoid/bigoted/unstable/hateful faction is a much much greater percentage of the whole megillah; i am open to being proved wrong, but...)

...anyway, i wish that y'know people like luckynkl and Mary Sunshine and even g-m-r, and byrdeye and Angry Harry and so on, would, like, get a room, for their eternal hatefuck, and leave the rest of us A-LONE.

Little Light posts a powerful poem that is somewhat similar to a Robin Morgan piece....and gets accused by Heart(less) of PLAGARISM?!?!?!

That would be the same Heart who attempted to justify the tranny-bashing of Luckynkl and others at IBTP...even after even Twisty admitted that it crossed the line into bigotry?? The same Heart who last year posted her "you can't be a real feminist unless you follow my lead" blast against critics of her antiporn radfem theology?? The same Heart(less) who makes it her personal responsibility to avoid and dismiss women of color as mere mimes to "trash" her brand of radfems???

Oh, yeah...that Heart(less).

Personally, I have to object to Belle's piling on.....she wasn't forceful enough.

Yeah, the whole "youcan't birth baaabbbiiees" thing kind sent me over the edge (aw, fuck that, I've been over the edge for a while now, and to get a new typical file)....makes me wanna polish up my jackboots and all.

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